A NOOB and his games...
by Daniel Hopkins · 04/01/2009 (10:32 pm) · 6 comments
As I mentioned in my last blog, I started my own game project called "BumperDerby" for the purpose of entering it into an all-Blender Game Engine (or BGE) game competition. I have since then made some considerable progress on it, and I figured I'd post some screens. Not wanting to post a completely unTorque-related blog, I also want to share a game which I created a while back with TGB which I codenamed "RainyDayz." Join me now, as a noob shows his games...
BumperDerby:
BumperDerby is a fun, zany 3D arcade bumping game. You start out by creating your own account featuring your own:
1) account name *gasp* :D
2) customizable character and bumper car
3) score keeper (keeps track of the medals you've earned)
4) customizable controls
I am especially proud of items 2 and 4. Believe it or not, but you have to do a LOT to get customizable controls and making customizable characters is nothing short of MIND BENDING INSANITY. Well, maybe not that bad, but you get the point. Blender is a great, free program, but it lacks many game specific editors and tasks (hence the reason I moved to TGE[A]). What's also neat is the computer characters are randomly generated each time you load a level--you will never see the same character again (or, if you do, you won't remember :D).
Here are some in-game screenshots:
(my personal favorite)
And here is a temp-video:
NOTE: This is very early video. I have since finished off the menus and made a lot more progress. Also, there is no sound.
Anyway, there is a whole lot more to the game, and if you want to learn more, feel free to check out the official project sitehere.<-Click there :D
You can also download the latest version here: www.jumbosmart.com/awesome-games
RainyDayz:
RainyDayz is a little 2D game I created a while back with TGB. The story behind the game is that I was asked by an animation studio if I might create a small, 2D promotional game to be used on their website. I would like to make a note: as an artist, frankly, I stink. With that aside, I bought TBG and in about a week or two came up with my first draft. The idea was: I can program, they have artists, I worry about gameplay, they replace all my terrible artwork with good stuff. However, everything didn't quite work out, and they weren't able to work on it, and it was dropped. So, several months after the project had been completely dropped, I figured it might be fun to show what a programmer with terrible art skills can do with TGB in 2 weeks.
The idea of the game is you're in a cabin with a leaky roof and it is raining (as it usually does when in a cabin with a leaky roof). You use the bucket to collect the rain drops and other fun power-ups. There are also bad power-ups you have to watch out for. You gain points the longer you last (time-bonuses) and by catching rain drops (which fall faster as time progresses). The game ends when your cabin is flooded. It's very simple, but I think it's pretty fun. It's a bummer it wasn't able to go beyond my prototype artwork, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
So, here are some screens:
And here you can download the Windows executable:
www.mediafire.com/file/zk5zyjzdtny/RainyDayz_win.zip
Enjoy!
Though it's not very good (especially compared to some of the great projects around here) and the artwork stinks, I think it is pretty neat I was able to download TGB and (with VERY little previous Torque experience) create it in 2 weeks. Go GarageGames!!
And thus ends my blog. I hope you enjoyed it! Have a great week!
BumperDerby:
BumperDerby is a fun, zany 3D arcade bumping game. You start out by creating your own account featuring your own:
1) account name *gasp* :D
2) customizable character and bumper car
3) score keeper (keeps track of the medals you've earned)
4) customizable controls
I am especially proud of items 2 and 4. Believe it or not, but you have to do a LOT to get customizable controls and making customizable characters is nothing short of MIND BENDING INSANITY. Well, maybe not that bad, but you get the point. Blender is a great, free program, but it lacks many game specific editors and tasks (hence the reason I moved to TGE[A]). What's also neat is the computer characters are randomly generated each time you load a level--you will never see the same character again (or, if you do, you won't remember :D).
Here are some in-game screenshots:
(my personal favorite)And here is a temp-video:
NOTE: This is very early video. I have since finished off the menus and made a lot more progress. Also, there is no sound.
Anyway, there is a whole lot more to the game, and if you want to learn more, feel free to check out the official project sitehere.<-Click there :D
You can also download the latest version here: www.jumbosmart.com/awesome-games
RainyDayz:
RainyDayz is a little 2D game I created a while back with TGB. The story behind the game is that I was asked by an animation studio if I might create a small, 2D promotional game to be used on their website. I would like to make a note: as an artist, frankly, I stink. With that aside, I bought TBG and in about a week or two came up with my first draft. The idea was: I can program, they have artists, I worry about gameplay, they replace all my terrible artwork with good stuff. However, everything didn't quite work out, and they weren't able to work on it, and it was dropped. So, several months after the project had been completely dropped, I figured it might be fun to show what a programmer with terrible art skills can do with TGB in 2 weeks.
The idea of the game is you're in a cabin with a leaky roof and it is raining (as it usually does when in a cabin with a leaky roof). You use the bucket to collect the rain drops and other fun power-ups. There are also bad power-ups you have to watch out for. You gain points the longer you last (time-bonuses) and by catching rain drops (which fall faster as time progresses). The game ends when your cabin is flooded. It's very simple, but I think it's pretty fun. It's a bummer it wasn't able to go beyond my prototype artwork, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
So, here are some screens:
And here you can download the Windows executable:
www.mediafire.com/file/zk5zyjzdtny/RainyDayz_win.zip
Enjoy!
Though it's not very good (especially compared to some of the great projects around here) and the artwork stinks, I think it is pretty neat I was able to download TGB and (with VERY little previous Torque experience) create it in 2 weeks. Go GarageGames!!
And thus ends my blog. I hope you enjoyed it! Have a great week!
About the author
#3
The two main reasons I dropped the BGE are:
1) Development inefficiency:
Though it is a great animation software, the game engine side feels like something just thrown in as an extra feature to boost the "coolness" factor. It lacks a lot of game-related editors and features. No GUI editor. If you want buttons, you have to build them yourself. No particle editor. Want particles? Go find some tutorial about how you have to do this, and this, and that to get it setup--then spend more time making the actual effect. Asset management is horrible. There is no "asset scene" where you model your objects, and can then add them into your levels. You have to model them in a separate .blend, and then import them into each and every new level you create. In short, the time you gain by using an engine which entirely skips the asset-to-game pipeline, is more than offset by the time it takes to overcome its lack of features. Many times, I would become fustrated because I would find myself forced to do many tediously boring and un-game related tasks instead of working on the actual game. Not cool.
2) Gameplay inefficiency:
Ok, so the development isn't all that great, but we still have this neat software that lets me quickly design my games without going through the trouble of importing my models, materials, etc. into an external game engine. True, and I would have to say that, despite its development quirks, I would have a very hard time spending money on another engine...if it weren't for one thing--IT CAN'T PLAY MY GAMES!! Blender uses Python as a scripting language and, instead of precompiling the scripts at runtime as do Torque products, it runs the script when it gets there (i.e. slow scripts). It also has virtually no scene manager. The last I heard, it still uses a simply object occlusion method--if it's not in front of the camera, it gets culled. This essentially means that there is a good possibility that, after you've gone through all that work to make a neat game with menus and particles, Blender won't be able to run it at acceptable frame rates. REALLY not cool. I experienced this many times. It's never good to go into a project with the knowledge that, in the end, it might all be for nothing. I will note that the new Blender release is a good bit better as far as rendering effeciency goes, but still quite far from that of TGE[A]. For example, BumperDerby runs just below 60FPS with several "blips" in which it drops down to 20FPS. Basically, it is on the edge of being too much. The poly count? The levels have no more that 3,500 vertices (several have less), and, with all the objects included, I highly doubt it ever goes above 12,000. Compared to TGEA's capability of multiple 10,000 vertice buildings placed in a scene with reflective water and a large terrain, it's not very promising.
And so that's why I changed to TGEA. Sorry for the rather long post.
@Rene Damm: Thanks a lot! I hope it is..."Gameplay" is the category I entered it into. =)
04/02/2009 (11:18 am)
@David Janssens: Quote:As I'm a on-and-off Blender user myself, could you explain the reasons why you dropped Blender Game Engine for TGE(A)?
The two main reasons I dropped the BGE are:
1) Development inefficiency:
Though it is a great animation software, the game engine side feels like something just thrown in as an extra feature to boost the "coolness" factor. It lacks a lot of game-related editors and features. No GUI editor. If you want buttons, you have to build them yourself. No particle editor. Want particles? Go find some tutorial about how you have to do this, and this, and that to get it setup--then spend more time making the actual effect. Asset management is horrible. There is no "asset scene" where you model your objects, and can then add them into your levels. You have to model them in a separate .blend, and then import them into each and every new level you create. In short, the time you gain by using an engine which entirely skips the asset-to-game pipeline, is more than offset by the time it takes to overcome its lack of features. Many times, I would become fustrated because I would find myself forced to do many tediously boring and un-game related tasks instead of working on the actual game. Not cool.
2) Gameplay inefficiency:
Ok, so the development isn't all that great, but we still have this neat software that lets me quickly design my games without going through the trouble of importing my models, materials, etc. into an external game engine. True, and I would have to say that, despite its development quirks, I would have a very hard time spending money on another engine...if it weren't for one thing--IT CAN'T PLAY MY GAMES!! Blender uses Python as a scripting language and, instead of precompiling the scripts at runtime as do Torque products, it runs the script when it gets there (i.e. slow scripts). It also has virtually no scene manager. The last I heard, it still uses a simply object occlusion method--if it's not in front of the camera, it gets culled. This essentially means that there is a good possibility that, after you've gone through all that work to make a neat game with menus and particles, Blender won't be able to run it at acceptable frame rates. REALLY not cool. I experienced this many times. It's never good to go into a project with the knowledge that, in the end, it might all be for nothing. I will note that the new Blender release is a good bit better as far as rendering effeciency goes, but still quite far from that of TGE[A]. For example, BumperDerby runs just below 60FPS with several "blips" in which it drops down to 20FPS. Basically, it is on the edge of being too much. The poly count? The levels have no more that 3,500 vertices (several have less), and, with all the objects included, I highly doubt it ever goes above 12,000. Compared to TGEA's capability of multiple 10,000 vertice buildings placed in a scene with reflective water and a large terrain, it's not very promising.
And so that's why I changed to TGEA. Sorry for the rather long post.
@Rene Damm: Thanks a lot! I hope it is..."Gameplay" is the category I entered it into. =)
#4
04/02/2009 (2:51 pm)
Both look like really fun games... watched the video and it looks even more fun in video :) 
#5
04/03/2009 (3:20 pm)
i am impressed. very nice.
#6
04/06/2009 (7:32 pm)
I have released a newer and better version at my offical website: www.jumbosmart.com/awesome-games Just scroll to the bottom in the "Downloads" section and click the link. Enjoy! 
Torque Owner David Janssens
Nebulagame.com
The version of BumperDerby Showoff on the site is labeled as 0.6, is there any newer version available?
Keep up the good work.